@freemo How about youth pastors, teachers at church schools, et al.?

I agree that the Catholic church has been scapegoated (probably shades of ancient anti-Catholic prejudices in general). They've covered up plenty of abuse, but they're certainly not the only offenders, and probably not the worst ones. My point is that these days, religious conservatives in the US label things like teaching LGBTQ kids to be comfortable in their own bodies as "grooming" ... while having an *extremely* well-documented history of covering up the real thing.

@freemo "religious conservatives of all denominations," I should have specified.

@medigoth

> How about youth pastors, teachers at church schools, et al.?

If you have specific data for them im all ears.

> My point is that these days, religious conservatives in the US label things like teaching LGBTQ kids to be comfortable in their own bodies as “grooming”

Yes that is a serious issue, mostly from the right, and leads to all sorts of problems. No arguments there.

@freemo I don't have the data. I was hoping maybe you did. :)

If neither of us has the numbers, of course to some degree we're just blowing smoke. But I will say I personally know an alarmingly large number of people who suffered exactly that type of abuse, and never got justice for it.

@medigoth Sadly no. When i responded i looked and didnt find it. The closest I got was comparing catholic priests to teachers.

@freemo It occurs to me that it might be fairly easy to get the data, at least as far as *convicted* offenders go. I don't actually know what information is available on sex offender registries, but if they include empoyment at the time of conviction, one could download the data and gather the relevant statistics. Otherwise it would be a hell of a research project.

I'm curious enough about this that in the first case, I might actually do it, and if so I'll post the results here. But really I should probably get back to the kind of statistics they pay me for. 😀

@freemo @medigoth

You've generally got two things going on:

1. Progressive activists exposing young children to sexual content such as child pornography and erotic entertainment performances, to the point of convincing some children to participate in striptease and erotic dance performances themselves, and in some cases coercing them into undergoing life-altering medicate procedures

2. Christians and Conservatives--not as a whole, be to some extent at an institutional level, especially within the church--being protected from the consequences of molesting and assaulting women and children

Both are issues, but in order to perpetuate polarization within our culture, you're only allowed to believe that one of these things are bad.

@realcaseyrollins @freemo Casey, thanks for letting me know when I could stop reading with the first few words of your first "point."

@medigoth @freemo You're proving my point here man.

@realcaseyrollins @freemo No. If you genuinely believe what you wrote in item #1, provide some evidence.

@medigoth @freemo Hmm...part of me doesn't want to. With the way you've approached my responses, I'm inclined to believe that even when I show you examples of progressive activists supporting child pornography and involving children in sexual performances, you'd say it's either not child porn or sexual at all, or say that it's hunky-dory.

Which of course goes to my point, which you refused to read because you don't like my opinions:

> Both are issues, but in order to perpetuate polarization within our culture, you're only allowed to believe that one of these things are bad.

@realcaseyrollins @freemo "Thanks for letting me know when to stop reading" is a rhetorical device, of course. I did read your entire post. And *if* I saw evidence of what you describe in #1, I'd agree with your final point.

But so far I haven't. What I have seen is a whole lot of conservatives labeling as "progressive activists supporting child pornography and involving children in sexual performances" things that really aren't, e.g. the tempest-in-a-teapot "drag queen story hour." If you present actual evidence—from reliable sources, not right-wing propaganda sites, to be clear—I'll try to evaluate it fairly.

BTW, there *are* people making children put on sexual performances ... in the child beauty pageant world. I don't claim to know, but I'd guess most of the adults who put those events on aren't "progressives."

@medigoth @freemo Thanks for actually taking the time to read my points then, I appreciate that.

Firstly, to address your point at the end with brevity, since it's the one where we have some common ground: yes, beauty pageants for kids are weird and gross.

I'm actually rather surprised that neither of you have heard anything about what I've referenced in my first point, as both the right and left have been fairly vocal on this issue.

My first point has two primary tenets:

1. Activists are pushing for child pornography and sexual material to be included in school libraries and curriculums

(Also, for sake of discussion, let's draw the line of "sexual education" and "sexual material/pornography" at whether or not sexual acts are depicted in an instructional way, or a narrative way, as it is to be expected that all schools have sexual education on some level, and sexual education isn't what I'm talking about here.)

2. Activists are pushing to expose children to/include children in sexual performances.

I won't waste your time with all the dozens of examples that exist for both of these points, I'll only provide two of each, and allow you to decide if you think they're okay.

On the first tenet, the most well-known example is the book #GenderQueer, which has been assigned to some children in some schools as part of their reading curriculums. In short, it includes some illustrations of individuals--some of which are underage--participating in sexual activities, as part of the story. I won't post the images, but #Wikipedia surprisingly does a good job of summarizing the most objectionable bits here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Queer#Censorship_and_controversy_in_the_United_States

/1

@medigoth @freemo

The second example isn't as graphic; it's a book called #NickAndCharlie, which includes some smut as part of the story. To be fair, this isn't exactly new in schools, I've come across books with sex scenes in them on accident, but the difference here is that apparently the school also had a graphic novel version of the book, which includes at least one scene of two teen boys having sex.

https://nypost.com/2023/02/28/knox-zajac-reads-aloud-from-pornographic-book-at-school-board-meeting/

On the second tenet, more recently there was the #GardenOfEden drag show in #Texas, where those hosted the event called it "Rated R [or] TV-MA", but said "minors must be accompanied by a parent/guardian", and a handful were. While note exactly a striptease show, it was clearly an erotic performance on some level, thus the self-ascribed TV-MA rating

https://www.outkick.com/texas-restaurant-allows-child-into-r-rated-drag-show-thats-clearly-not-safe-for-kids/

There also has been the trend of "drag kids", the most famous one being #DesmondIsAmazing, whose parents allow them to participate in similar performances

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/drag-kids-are-slaying-runway-one-fierce-look-time-n918211

To be fair to the progressives, I'm not going to include the multiple instances of drag queens flashing themselves in front of children in libraries, or parents taking their children to #LGBT pride rallies/parades where many of those demonstrating are nude, since I've seen progressives call that out.

But those are just some examples, I'm not sure if y'all think this is okay or not. There are more out there, but I won't hunt them down for you.

@realcaseyrollins

#1 is coming from where exactly? I am not aware of children being exposed to child porn as a recent trend... id be curious where this is coming from

#2 makes sense of course

@medigoth